


swear that I'll be around for you

by AliuIce0814



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Background Relationships, Childbirth, Disabled Eddie Kaspbrak, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Medical Procedures, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Pregnancy, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Male Richie Tozier, Trans Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29726007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/pseuds/AliuIce0814
Summary: Eddie thought he was prepared for Richie to have their baby.Truth is, there's no good way to prepare to be a parent. Nothing ever goes to plan.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	swear that I'll be around for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleBird20](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleBird20/gifts).



> cw for trans pregnancy, fairly graphic depiction of a C-section, some (relatively minor) transphobia/cis nonsense, emetophobia triggers, a baby in the NICU, panic attacks, and mentioned past child abuse (Sonia)
> 
> Your author is trans! This fic is based off experiences when my nonbinary partner had our baby. The medical parts are as accurate as my memory.

Eddie woke up to the bed-shaking sensation of Richie rocketing upright beside him. Before Eddie’s brain was even fully online, he had the trash can in his hand and under Richie’s chin, muscle memory from months of Richie’s morning sickness. After a blurry and tense moment, it registered with Eddie that Richie wasn’t throwing up. He was just sitting up, panting, hands gripping his knees. Eddie adjusted to the dark enough to see Richie’s wide, wild eyes. 

“Rich?” Eddie asked cautiously. He didn’t set the trash can aside yet, but he shifted it so it wasn’t pressing against Richie’s belly anymore. Richie reached out and gripped his forearm tight. 

“Eddie,” he said hoarsely. Eddie could feel him trembling. He set the trash can aside so he could stroke his thumb over Richie’s knuckles. He swallowed back the rush of terrified questions that wanted to pour from his mouth: Are you nauseous? Where does it hurt? Is it the baby?

“Eddie,” Richie said again, voice stronger but no less afraid. “Can you--can you Google what your water breaking feels like?”

“What?”

“My water broke. My water fucking broke, fuck.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m fucking sure, I know what pissing myself feels like and this is not it. Holy fuck, Eddie, Eddie, I can’t. It’s too early, she’s supposed to stay on the inside for six more weeks--”

“I know, okay, just fucking breathe for a minute, okay?” Eddie squeezed Richie’s clammy hand. Richie let out a wet sob. “Okay, honey, I know. Fuck. Okay. We’re gonna call Dr. Calloway--”

“She’s on vacation.”

“Fuck. God dammit. Okay. We’re going to call the hospital and tell them we’re on the way. Can you stand up?” 

Richie swallowed. “Eds.”

Eddie shoved down all of the anxious, running-together words that wanted to boil out of him, and stroked his thumb over Richie’s clammy cheek instead. “Get your glasses on. Come on.” Once Richie fumbled for his glasses on his bedside table, Eddie retrieved his cane from beside the bed and hauled himself to his feet. On the other side of the bed, Richie was slowly standing. His shoulders shook.

Eddie flicked on the bedside lamp. Even in that relatively dim light, he could see the wet patch Richie had left on the mattress. Richie paused with one hand still on the bed. Eddie swallowed. “What’s happening?”

“Contraction.” Richie’s breath whistled when he inhaled. “I think. I don’t fucking know, it hurts.” 

"Okay. Okay. I'm gonna grab your bag, just--can you walk?" God, Eddie hoped Richie could walk. He could slide his free arm around Richie's waist, maybe, but if Richie fell Eddie didn't have enough balance to catch him, even with the cane. Richie nodded. His hands shook. "Go to the car. I'm right behind you."

"Eddie, I can't," Richie said helplessly. "I can't, it's too early, her lungs--"

"34 weeks, her lungs will be okay," Eddie said, hoping he remembered the What To Expect book correctly. "But regardless, we have to go to the hospital, okay? Both of you will be safer there."

Richie shuddered. He hesitated by the bed for a moment before nodding. Eddie waited until he had started walking slowly to the front door before he went to the nursery to grab Richie's bug-out bag. The nursery was a disaster: onesies were strewn across the top of the dresser, which wasn't anchored yet. Nothing was anchored yet. They didn't even have a diaper genie. Richie’s baby shower wasn’t until next week. 

Eddie slung the bug-out bag over his shoulder and headed to the front door. Richie was frozen there, one hand on the handle, legs shaking. Eddie took the car key off the hook and punched the unlock button. Outside, down the stairs from the apartment, he could hear the Escalade beep. 

"Come on," he said, nudging Richie out the door. “Keep your hand on the rail going down the stairs, baby.”

“Uh-huh,” Richie said thickly. Eddie hesitated. Should he go in front of Richie so that if Richie fell he would at least have a soft landing, or behind him on the off chance he would be able to grab Richie under the armpits to balance him if he fell? Neither seemed like a good option. He finally settled on going behind Richie. His palm sweated on his cane’s hand grip the whole way down the stairs. 

They’d been to the hospital for OBGYN appointments enough over the past few months that Eddie could drive there on autopilot. It was a good thing, too, because his whole brain honed in on Richie. Twice, Richie tensed up, eyes squeezing shut. Both times, Eddie caught his hand and held on tight. 

Halfway down the freeway, Richie swallowed convulsively. “Gonna puke,” he said thickly. 

Eddie’s whole body tensed. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He couldn’t decide: pull over or keep going? Cars could be cleaned, he told himself firmly, even as his mouth went dry with anxiety. He kept driving. 

Somehow, Richie made it ot the hospital without puking. Eddie pulled right under the OB ER’s overhang. “Go on in,” he said. “I’ll park.”

Richie shook his head. “Not without you.”

“I’m not gonna make you walk farther - “

“Please.”

“Fine.” Eddie took what was supposed to be a calming breath. It didn’t work. He moved the car around to the accessible space closest to the ER’s doors. Only then would Richie get out. 

Eddie kept his free hand on Richie’s elbow as they went through the ER’s doors. The waiting room just inside was quiet: one guy was sitting on the couch, half-asleep to the House Hunters episode playing softly on the big TV. The receptionist sitting at the desk looked up, smiling, and then paused when she saw Richie. 

Eddie recognized that pause and hated it. By the way Richie leaned into him, Eddie knew he’d noticed it too. Eddie gently pulled Richie up to the desk and said in the clearest voice he could manage, “Hi. My husband’s water broke. Richie Tozier, T-O-Z-I-E-R, date of birth oh-three-oh-seven-one-nine-seven-six. He’s only 34 weeks. His OB is Dr. Calloway, but I think she’s on vacation.”

To her credit, the receptionist didn’t hesitate. Maybe Eddie’s thunderous expression was working. “That’s okay. I’m going to call back to triage and let them know you’re here, okay? Do you think you can sit in one of these chairs?” She aimed that question at Richie, who nodded. As soon as he sat, his legs started jiggling. 

“Hey,” Eddie said sharply, sitting beside him. “Baby. It’s gonna be okay.” Richie’s face crumpled. He shoved his hands under his glasses and scrubbed at his eyes. His breath whistled when he inhaled. “She’s going to be okay,” Eddie said. He touched Richie’s belly for just a second before he jerked back - what if touching hurt Richie? But Richie grabbed Eddie’s wrist and pressed his palm to the lower part of his stomach’s curve. Immediately, Eddie felt the familiar bop-bop-bop of the baby battering Richie with feisty kicks. Eddie couldn’t quite muffle his gasp of relief. “See, she’s okay.”

"She’s fuckin’ mad at me,” Richie said, scrubbing at his face again. He made a choked sound. “She’s so mad at me.” 

“No, she’s not,” Eddie said. Richie nodded. “C’mon, Richie, no she’s not, she’s just hanging out in there like normal. She’s--”

The double doors that led back into the ER opened. “Richie?” asked the nurse who came through them with a wheelchair. Richie looked up quickly. Eddie squeezed his shoulder. The nurse smiled. “Hi there. I hear you’re having a bit of a night. Let’s get you back to triage to see what’s going on, okay?”

Richie nodded. He hesitated just a second before he got himself over to the wheelchair and sat in it. Eddie followed, fighting the irrational urge to take the wheelchair from the nurse. He knew how to take care of Richie. He’d been doing it forever. 

But not like this. He couldn’t protect him from this. 

As soon as they got back to a little glass-walled room in triage, the nurse pulled the curtain around Richie and had him change into a hospital gown. “We only have pink down here,” she said apologetically. 

“Pink’s absolutely my color, don’t even worry about it.” It was the first flash of humor Eddie’d seen from Richie tonight.

While Richie got changed and into the hospital bed, the nurse plugged wires into a machine by the bed and hooked them up to two circles with long velcro straps, one pink and one blue. “You’ve been on the monitor before, right?” Richie nodded. He’d been on it a lot at the OB’s office, just an extra precaution since he was in his 40s. He and Eddie had always enjoyed it before - it was fun to hear the baby hiccuping and doing somersaults. Now the monitor made Eddie’s stomach hurt. “The gel’s a little cold, I’m sorry,” the nurse said, squeezing it on Richie’s belly and attaching the monitors with the velcro straps. “Let’s just--there we go. There’s baby’s heartbeat.” The steady, quick waves of sound filled the room. “And this one goes here for contractions, but you know that. Have you been feeling any?”

Richie nodded. He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. Eddie caught the panicked look in his eyes and jumped in: “He had two in the car and one at home. He was really nauseous in the car, too.”

“Just your driving,” Richie mumbled. Eddie squashed the impulse to flip him off. 

“Are you feeling nauseous now?” the nurse asked. 

Richie was quiet for a moment. “A little bit.”

“Okay. You let us know if that gets any worse. I’m going to step out and talk to the OB on call, okay?”

“His doctor’s Dr. Calloway.”

“Yeah, she’s on vacation.”

“I know, but--she had a plan. She had a team put together for him.” Because he’s trans, Eddie thought but didn’t say. Because even in L.A. in the 21st fucking century, they couldn’t trust everyone to treat Richie with the care he deserved. 

The nurse must have caught some of that in the look on Eddie’s face. She nodded. “We’re working right now to get as much of that team together as we can. We’ll take good care of him, okay?” She squeezed Richie’s ankle gently. “We’ll take good care of you, Richie. Both of you. Let me step out and tell the doctor what’s going on.” 

Once the nurse left the room, Richie’s breath started shuddering. “Hey, hey,” Eddie soothed. “It’s gonna be okay. They’re gonna take care of it. Listen, she’s got the hiccups again.” 

Sure enough, the baby’s arrhythmic hiccups overlapped her heartbeat. Mid-tears, Richie started to smile. “Boo,” he said in the direction of his stomach. The baby hiccuped again. “Typical.” 

“You’re not scary, dude.”

“Don’t tell the kid that!”

Eddie snorted. “Please, she already knows you’re the pushover dad.” 

Richie made an offended noise, but before he could reply, the nurse was coming back into the room, followed by a doctor and a whole crowd of people. Richie’s birth team? Eddie wondered. Oh, shit. 

The doctor’s face was grimmer than Eddie had expected. “Okay, update, we’re going to do this now.” 

“What, now now?” Eddie demanded. Richie’s face was ashen. 

“Yep, it’s go time. Dad--this dad,” the nurse said, patting Eddie’s shoulder, “we’re going to get you in scrubs, and this dad--” the nurse squeezed one of Richie’s ankles, “things are about to get a little busy around you, okay? We’re going to get you all ready for surgery.”

“So we’re--so you’re for sure doing a C-section?” That wasn’t the plan, Eddie thinks wildly, although it wasn’t not the plan - they were going to wait and see and decide at Richie’s next OB appointment. Richie had thought there would be more time to decide. 

“Safest way out right now,” the doctor said. She squeezed Richie’s ankle just like the nurse had done earlier. “Baby’s not in any distress right now, but we don’t want her to get to that point. We already let the NICU know what’s happening, and they’re going to send a team down.” 

“She can’t just stay with me?” Richie said, voice shaking. Eddie couldn’t tell if he was asking why the baby had to go to the NICU or why the baby couldn’t just stay on the inside for six more weeks like she was supposed to. 

“She’s a little young,” the doctor said gently. “I will say 34-weekers tend to do exceptionally well. The NICU team will take good care of her, okay?”

Richie shoved his hands under his glasses and dug his knuckles into his eyelids. “Fuck.” 

“I know,” the doctor said. Her voice was still so gentle. Eddie wished Dr. Calloway was here - or that no one was here, that they were at home and Richie’s water hadn’t broken and they still had six weeks - but even in all his panic he thought this OB might be okay. “I’m going to take good care of you. I gotta go scrub up, okay?” 

Richie took a shivering breath. “Fuck. Okay.” 

As soon as the doctor left the room, all of the nurses and other helpers - were they all nurses? Eddie couldn’t figure it out - launched into action. One pulled the curtain around Richie’s bed while another pulled up Richie’s pink hospital gown and started shaving the hair from his lower belly all the way down to his pubic hair. 

“Let’s get you in some scrubs, Dad,” a nurse said. She passed a bundle of scratchy blue paper scrubs to Eddie. He unfolded them in a daze. “Do you need a hand?” the nurse asked. Eddie started to say no, but then he considered how long it could take him to put on the coveralls on his own. He took the nurse’s offered arm to balance while he struggled into the coveralls and zipped them up. He had to sit down to slide on the shoe covers. He put on the mask, and the scrub cap, and then he was pushing himself to his feet and at Richie’s side. They’d finished shaving him and were in the process of starting an IV in his right arm. There was already one in his left forearm, held tight by tape. 

“Hey,” Eddie said. He squeezed Richie’s hand so Richie would look at him and not at the needle piercing his arm. Richie tangled their fingers together. His palm was clammy against Eddie’s. “I’ll be right there,” Eddie promised. 

Richie squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “What the fuck,” he said, more to himself than anything. Eddie mumbled ‘yeah’ back anyway. Because: what the fuck. They were going to be parents now. Not in six weeks. Now. 

Someone knocked on the doorframe. “Transport,” they called. 

“Yup, we’re ready,” one of the nurses called back. “Wait - I’m going to take your glasses, okay?”

“Oh.” Richie took off his glasses and passed them to the nurse. “Dude, don’t lose those, otherwise I’ll think my kid’s just some weird-shaped blob.” 

It was probably the weakest attempt at humor Eddie had ever heard from Richie, but the nurse grinned anyway. “You know, she’ll probably look a little weird-shaped anyway. That’s kind of the nature of newborns.”

"Ready?" the transport person asked. They nudged something under Richie's bed with their foot. With a click, the bed started rolling. 

Richie swallowed. "No. Let's go."

The transport people who pushed Richie’s hospital bed to the OR moved faster than Eddie expected. He had to work to keep up with them, and he could feel himself getting winded. He could hear Richie’s muffled sobs. 

The transport team pushed Richie’s bed through the double doors. When Eddie tried to follow, one of the nurses gently stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Wait right here, okay? We’re going to get him settled and then we’ll bring him back.”

“What does ‘get him settled’ mean?” Eddie demanded. 

“The anesthesiologist is going to do his epidural.”

Eddie swallowed. “How long will that take?”

“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. We’ll come get you right away, I promise. Why don’t you have a seat while you wait?”

Eddie slowly sat in one of the hard plastic chairs by the OR’s double doors. The receptionist at the nurses’ station smiled at him briefly before returning her focus to her computer. 

Ten to fifteen minutes. Why the fuck would it take fifteen minutes for anesthesia? Eddie pulled out his phone to Google “c section anesthesia epidural” but thought better of it the second the results loaded. He opened the group chat instead. The last message was from Ben, a video of Bev and their border collie running an agility course. 

Eddie typed and deleted the same message four times. His legs jiggled uncontrollably the way Richie’s used to in algebra. The receptionist kept typing steadily, as if Eddie’s whole goddamn world wasn’t about to undergo major surgery in the next room. 

“Fuck,” Eddie said out loud. The receptionist didn’t even look up. He tapped the little camera icon in the corner of the group chat, snapped a picture of himself in his scrubs, and sent it. 

Immediately, his phone started buzzing with notifications. Eddie let it sit until it started ringing. He answered it on autopilot: “Edward Kaspbrak speaking.” 

“Eddie,” Stan said, the concerned edges of his voice muffled by sleep. “What’s going on?”

“It’s happening.” 

Stan was quiet for a moment. “Right now?” he said finally. Eddie could hear Patty murmuring in the background. “Richie’s having the baby,” Stan said a little away from the phone. To Eddie, he asked, “What hospital?”

“Cedars-Sinai. They just took him back to do his spinal block, and then they’re going to let me go back and be with him while they do surgery. His OB’s on vacation, so we don’t know the surgeon or anyone on the team, and--”

“Got it. I’ll call everyone else.”

Relief rushed through Eddie. “Please? Sorry, Stan, I know it’s fucking late.”

“That’s the way of babies,” Stan said wryly. Eddie wondered if maybe that’s why he’d been awake to call, if he’d been up already with Jonah. “Focus on Richie. I’ll take care of this.”

Eddie meant to say “thanks,” but then the double doors swung open. “Okay cool,” he said instead, hanging up and shoving his phone in his pocket. He grabbed his cane and pushed himself to his feet. “He’s ready?” he asked the nurse who poked her head through the doors. 

“All ready. Follow me.”

Eddie’s field of vision narrowed to the nurse’s feet in front of him. She led him through the double doors, down a short hall, and into another room filled with beeping machines. Eddie stumbled a little going through the door. He could just make out Richie’s head, face-up on the operating table, and then the blue sheet hanging vertically across his chest to hide everything going on down below. Eddie swallowed and stumbled to the chair by Richie’s head. “Hey,” he said. 

Richie blinked slowly. His eyes were red and puffy, but he managed a tiny smile. “Hey.” The surgeon was talking to someone behind the curtain, but Eddie forced himself not to listen. He stroked Richie’s hair instead. Richie tilted his head just a little into the touch. “I didn’t even puke when that guy stuck a giant needle in my back.”

“That guy” was the anesthesiologist sitting behind Eddie on a tall swivel stool. He had been focused on the computer next to him, but he glanced over when Richie mentioned him and nodded at Eddie. “He did really well with the epidural,” he said. 

“He’s doing okay?” Eddie demanded. “It took?”

“Ease up, Doctor K,” Richie said in his best clipped British Guy. “I can’t feel anything.” 

A slurping sound caught Eddie’s attention. He looked to his left just in time to see a nurse setting a stack of blood-soaked gauze pads on a scale. He braced himself against a wave of nausea and bit down on the urge to ask what is that, why is he bleeding so much, what’s wrong? The surgeon knew what she was doing. She would have told Eddie if something was wrong. Blood was a normal part of surgery. It was fine. 

“What’s wrong?” Richie asked. 

“Nothing,” Eddie said, quickly turning to look at him again. “Everything’s fine. Why? What hurts, does something hurt?”

“No, just -- tugging. Really weird.” Richie shut his eyes. “Kinda makes me nauseous if I think about it too much.”

“Well then don’t think about it.” Eddie brushed Richie’s hair off of his sweaty forehead. “They know what they’re doing.”

Richie nodded and opened his eyes. “Hey doc, this is a full-service shop, right? Can you fit in a tummy tuck?” If Richie hadn’t been flat on his back, literally in the middle of surgery, Eddie would have kicked him. As it was, he couldn’t stop Richie from running his mouth: “I’ve actually been rocking the dad bod for a long time, but now that I’m gonna be a dad for real, ehhhhh, I don’t know. Seems kind of played out. Maybe I want to be a hot dad.”

The surgeon laughed. “Beep beep,” Eddie hissed. 

Richie wrinkled his nose. “Hey, you can’t ‘beep beep’ me when I’m on an operating table--mmm.” He shut his eyes quickly, brow furrowing. 

“Shh,” Eddie said. He could hear the surgeon talking, could almost feel the vibrations from how hard they were tugging at--whatever they were tugging at inside Richie. 

Then the baby cried. 

Eddie’d heard babies cry before, but they’d never sounded like this--it was almost like a kitten meowing, a raspy, upset yowl. His ears buzzed with it. The doctor held her up for just a second, long enough for a glimpse, before she passed her off to the NICU crew. The baby was so damn small and purple and mad. Her hands were balled into fists. 

“Oh my god,” Richie said faintly. “Oh my god that was her. Eddie--”

“Yeah, sweetheart, I know.” Eddie’s throat was so tight he could barely speak. 

“Is she okay? Where is she?” Richie twisted his head to the side, trying to look. Eddie was sure if Richie hadn’t been paralyzed from the chest down he would have been pushing himself off the operating table to follow her. He pressed a hand to Richie’s cheek. 

“They’re checking her out. It’s okay, Rich, don’t try to move.” 

Richie’s face was damp with tears. Eddie could hear the suction sound again but didn’t turn to look. “You’re so good,” he told Richie. “It’s okay, you’re so good.” 

“She’s okay?” Richie asked again. The sound of the baby’s cries were muffled - Eddie could just see the NICU team on the other side of a swinging door - but still there. 

“Listen to how loud she is. That’s, that’s lung development, right? She’s got good lungs if she’s that loud.” Eddie kissed Richie’s sweaty forehead. “They’re checking her out. I promise.”

Overhead, the intercom crackled to life, and a lullaby sound spooled out. “That’s for her,” the surgeon said. Richie sniffled. “We’re just getting you fixed up here, okay, Richie?”

“Uh-huh,” Richie said. “Don’t forget the tummy tuck.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The swinging door leading to the side room opened again. The NICU team wheeled out a clear incubator like the ones Eddie had seen on TV with tiny portholes on the sides. They pushed the incubator right up to Richie. Inside, the baby - their baby! Their kid! - was still squalling and kicking her tiny legs. “Five pounds, ten ounces,” one of the nurses said. 

“Oh, she’s pissed,” Richie said. A grin curled across his face. “I love her so much.” 

The nurses laughed. “We’re going to take her up to the NICU to get her settled now, but once you’re out of recovery you can come see her, okay?”

Eddie’s chest constricted. An illogical urge to snatch the baby - his baby! His daughter - out of the incubator flooded him. He forced down his panic as the NICU team wheeled the baby away. 

Richie’s snuffles caught Eddie’s attention. Richie was smiling and crying at the same time. ”Eddie, she’s so mad. She’s just like you.”

“Shut up,” Eddie said reflexively. The surgeon laughed. “If anything she’s loud like you.” He stroked Richie’s hair. 

“Okay, Eddie, we’re going to finish up in here, and then we’re going to wheel him down to recovery,” one of the nurses said. “Let me show you where he’ll be.” 

Eddie nearly argued - he didn't want to leave Richie. But then he considered what finishing up in the OR might mean and decided he was okay leaving the room. He followed the nurse out the double doors and down the hall to a different glass-walled room. It had a squishy chair in one corner and a scale and computer near the wall but otherwise was fairly empty. 

"Doesn't he need a bathroom?" Eddie asked. "He's staying here for a couple nights, right?"

"Oh, this is just for now, while we make sure he's settling okay. Once he seems stable we'll take him to a room with an en-suite bathroom. I promise."

"Good," Eddie said. He sat heavily in the squishy chair. 

The nurse typed on the computer for a minute. "I'm glad he has a good advocate like you," she said. 

Eddie blinked. "He's my husband. What else am I gonna do?"

"You would be surprised at some of the partners I've seen." The nurse peeked out the door. "Oh, here they come."

The first thing Eddie noticed when transport people wheeled Richie's bed into the recovery room was that he was shivering. "What's wrong? Are you cold?"

"Freezing," Richie said. 

Eddie stood and grabbed his clammy fingers. "Can he get another blanket?"

"I'll get one out of the warmer, how's that?" the nurse said. "And some ice chips."

Once the nurse stepped out of the room, Eddie kissed Richie three times, once on the nose, once on the mouth, and once on the forehead. "What hurts?" he demanded. 

"I can't feel shit below my chest," Richie said, teeth chattering. "I'm just cold."

Eddie pulled out his phone. "cold after anesthesia?" he googled. "Okay, that's normal."

"Thanks, Dr. K."

"Quit it," Eddie said without any real heat. "Are you sure nothing hurts?"

"I promise I can't feel the gaping hole that was recently in my torso."

"Lucky," Eddie grumbled, scratching absentmindedly at the scar on his chest. Richie smiled a lazy, shit-eating grin. 

"Here's your blanket," the nurse said, coming back into the room and laying the blanket over Richie's legs. "And here's your ice."

"Mm, delicious," Richie said. "What about my baby?"

"We're going to make sure everything's going good with you. But I can tell you…." The nurse clicked on something on the computer. "She is five pounds, ten ounces. Apgar score was 8, which is pretty good for a little thing like her."

"Can Eddie go see her?" 

"Rich - "

"'m grown, I can take care of myself," Richie said, despite being flat on his back and paralyzed from the waist down. "Want you to go see her, please."

Eddie swallowed. "I don't want you to be alone."

“Oh, reception called to say your family is here,” the nurse said. “One of them can sit with Richie while you check on your baby.”

Eddie blinked. “Family?”

“Yeah, they’re in the waiting room.” 

Eddie moved in a daze. Everything around him felt like it was on the other side of a staticky TV screen. The feeling only increased when he pushed through the ER doors to the waiting room and saw everyone crowded onto one couch. Not everyone, Eddie realized as he counted heads, Stan and Pat were missing. But there was Bev, curled on Ben’s lap with her feet on Audra’s lap; Audra with her head on Mike’s shoulder; Bill perched on the arm of the couch by Mike. 

Bill was the first one to look up. The first syllable of Eddie’s name spilled out of his mouth on a loop before he launched to his feet and dragged him into a hug. Mike’s big arms came around both of them, and then Bev was there, and Ben, and Audra’s soft, cool hand squeezed one of Eddie’s. 

“She’s here,” Eddie said. 

“Is she okay?” Bev asked. 

Eddie swallowed. “They took her straight to the NICU. She came out screaming, though.” 

“Those good Kaspbrak-Tozier yelling genes,” Mike said. Eddie elbowed him in the ribs. 

“Will they let you go see her?” Bev asked as they all untangled themselves from the hug. 

Eddie hesitated. “I can’t leave Richie alone.”

“I’ll go sit with him,” Bill said immediately. “Jus-just show me where he is.” 

“I’ll walk you up to the NICU," Bev said. 

Eddie wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Okay, let me just--I’ll walk you back, Bill, and then we can go to the NICU?”

“Whatever you need.”

Eddie led Bill and Bev through the automatic double doors. “He’s a little out of it. Make sure he’s not too cold. He was really cold earlier. They’re supposed to bring him warmed blankets, but don’t let them wait too long. And make sure he has enough ice chips.”

“Got it," Bill said. 

Eddie pushed through the curtain. Bill followed him, although Bev stayed just outside. Richie was squinting off to the side, blurrily confused the way he always was without his glasses, but when he caught sight of Bill he made a soft sound. “Hi.”

Bill squeezed Richie’s hand. “Hey, buddy. You’re hi-hi-high as shit, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, they gave me the good stuff.” Richie smiled hazily. “Like college all over again. What’re you doing here?”

“Everybody’s here except Stan, and his flight was supp-supposed to take off at six.” 

“Fuck, Stanny’s coming? Eds, you gotta get my good clothes.”

“Your good clothes?”

“Yeah, my, you know, the shirt.”

“No, I don’t fucking know the shirt.” 

“Shh, don’t worry about it.” Richie tapped Eddie’s hand gently. “I told you to go see my baby."

"I'm going, I'm going." Eddie kissed Richie's head before fixing Bill with a look. "Take care of him."

"Got it," Bill said seriously. Eddie stared hard at him for another second before stepping out of the room. 

He and Bev followed the signs hanging from the ceiling until they reached the NICU. The door was locked; there was some kind of hand scanner beside it. Eddie hesitated long enough that Bev ended up knocking for him. 

A nurse opened the door. "How can I help you?"

"My daughter's in there," Eddie said. His mouth felt dry. His daughter. "She's, uh, brand new."

"Okay. Are you the mom?" the nurse asked Bev. 

"Oh, no no no," Bev said, laughing. If Eddie hadn't been so damn scared he might have laughed too. "No, I'm the fun aunt."

"Okay, I'm going to have you stay out here because of flu season restrictions, but Dad can come in."

Eddie's hand shook on his cane. Bev nudged him until he stepped forward. The door shut behind him with a click. 

The entry to the NICU was its own room with a reception desk and a huge sink. Through the windows, Eddie could see rows of incubators and tiny cots. His knees shook. 

"Come scrub up," the nurse said. "You'll do this every time you come in. We don't want any germs."

"Got it," Eddie said quickly. He followed her to the sink. 

“We use this pink soap," the nurse said, nudging the bottle toward Eddie. "Make sure to scrub for twenty seconds. There are foot pedals under the sink so you don’t have to touch the handles. Make sure to put your phone in the plastic first.” 

Eddie slid his phone into the plastic baggie and sealed it with shaking hands. He set it on the counter and braced his elbows on the edge of the sink so he could wash his hands without falling. He watched the second hand on the big clock sweep from three to seven, then waited ten more seconds before he shook off his hands and grabbed a paper towel. 

"Ready?" the nurse asked. The only thing Eddie had ever felt less ready for was fighting a space clown, but he nodded. The nurse led him through the door to the NICU. 

"Our babies are organized into pods," she said. "Your girl is in pod C, right there at the end." 

After that Eddie couldn't hear anything. His mind laser-focused on the giant group of people in scrubs surrounding the tiny bed at the end of Pod C. Eddie moved toward them in a haze. He could feel his pulse in his hands and feet. 

“Oh, here’s dad,” said one of the people in scrubs. A doctor? A nurse? Eddie’s vision was too blurry to make out her badge. “Hey, Dad, it’s okay. We’re just getting her all set up. She’s on a warmer, and she’s got a CPAP in her nose there, but she’s pretty close to room air. She was mad at us! Screamed all the way up here.” 

The baby wasn’t wearing anything other than a diaper, and she was strapped into the bassinet with what looked like strips of baby blanket. She had a cannula in her nose, and an orange tube poking out of her mouth, and her left hand was all bundled up with an IV in it. Tiny adhesive dots held wires to her chest. Eddie stopped short. 

She was so small. Too small. She had a double chin, but she was just a tiny thing, curled up on her cot. There was no way she was what had made Richie's belly so big. Eddie couldn't touch her. She would get sick. His germs were too big for her. 

"Hey." Someone gently touched his elbow. When he looked, a nurse with her hair in a bun was smiling gently at him. “You can give her a little kiss on the head.”

“I can?” Eddie’s voice cracked. “I won’t kill her with cold sores?” He'd read about how perfectly healthy newborns could die because someone with a cold sore kissed them.

“Do you have a cold sore?”

“No.”

“Then it’s okay. Go ahead. Oh - wait, give me your phone. You need a picture."

Eddie passed over his phone with no hesitation. He leaned hard on his cane and bent over the high wall of the bassinet to press a kiss to the baby’s forehead. She was warm, and her dark curls were still a little damp; somehow even covered in gunk she smelled better than anything Eddie had ever smelled before. He wanted to hold her. He was terrified of holding her. Her forehead was so soft. Tears burned and spilled out of his eyes without him fully noticing. The nurse was taking a picture, but he didn’t look up. 

“Aww, Dad,” one of the nurses said. Eddie nearly lost his grip on his cane. He kissed the baby’s forehead one more time before he straightened up. 

“I should go back,” he said unsteadily. 

“That’s okay. You can come back any time except between 5:30 and 7. It’s okay, we’ll send info down to Mom’s room. I know you’re not taking anything in except that baby.” The nurse handed Eddie’s phone back to him. “Go show those to Mom, okay?”

Eddie was too dazed to correct her. He clutched his phone with his pictures of the baby and stumbled out of the NICU to Bev. 

#

“How’s his bleeding?” Eddie asked as soon as he ducked through the curtain across the recovery room doorway. 

“He’s doing really well,” the nurse said. “We’re about to head to his room, actually.”

“My baby?” Richie asked. His voice still sounded thin, but he started moving his arms like he might try to sit up. Bill pressed a hand to his chest until he stilled. “Did you see her?”

Eddie pulled out his phone and held it up close to Richie’s face so he could see. Richie blinked a few times before he let out a soft, wordless sound. 

Bill patted Richie’s hand. “She’s gorgeous, Richie.”

“Yeah, I did good,” Richie said in a scratchy voice. He wiped his eyes with a trembling hand. “Did you get to hold her? Is she okay?” 

“We can’t hold her yet. She’s on the CPAP and the feeding tube. I didn’t really ask a lot of questions, I’m sorry,” Eddie said. 

Richie nodded, but his mouth trembled. “I want to see her.”

“Hey, okay,” the nurse said. “We’ll wheel you up to see her before we go to your room.”

#

The nurse who had told Eddie to kiss the baby’s head earlier was checking one of the baby’s monitors when Richie, Eddie, and the transport nurse got to Pod C. She smiled when she saw Eddie. “Did you bring Mom this time?” 

Eddie squeezed Richie’s shoulder. In a deliberately clear voice, he said, “No, I brought Dad. The other one.”

The nurse didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, hi, other Dad! How are you feeling?”

“Like someone just forcibly evicted my child,” Richie rasped. “Where’s my baby?”

“Right over here. Let’s pull you up by her. My name’s Kendall, by the way, I’m one of the nurses who will be taking care of your baby.” 

The transport person rolled Richie’s bed until he was right by the foot of the baby’s bed. Kendall lowered the plastic side of the cot so that Richie could reach the baby. “You can touch her,” she said. “I know other dad was nervous about that earlier.” 

Richie gently touched the baby’s foot. “Hey, sweet thing. Hey.” The baby wrinkled her nose. Eddie tried to snap a few clear photos through the plastic wrapped around his phone, but his hands were shaking so badly that they all came out a little blurry. 

The nurse came back over with a piece of paper and a Sharpie. “What’s her name?”

Richie glanced at Eddie, eyes wide and hopeful. Eddie nodded. Richie grinned. “Maggie Moon Kaspbrak-Tozier.”

“Last name is K-a-s-p-b-r-a-k-hyphen-T-o-z-i-e-r,” Eddie added. 

"Maggie Moon,” Kendall said, writing Maggie’s name on the label in carefully neat print. “I love that. It’s so unique.”

“It’s his fault,” Eddie said, squeezing Richie’s leg. Richie’d gone around chanting “Moon Unit! Moon Unit!” until Eddie’d finally given in and let him have the middle name. 

“Well, I like it.” The nurse pinned the label to the warmer above Maggie’s bed. 

“When can I hold her?” RIchie asked. Eddie had never seen hunger so plain on Richie’s face, as if despite the numbness of anesthesia and the pain of surgery, Richie might just crawl into Maggie’s bed with her. 

“It depends on how both of you are feeling,” Kendall said. “You’ve really been through it today. Maybe tomorrow.” 

Richie’s face fell. “Oh.” He made another, smaller sound, quiet enough that Eddie was the only one who caught it. He recognized it right away, though: that was Richie’s “hiding pain” noise. “What hurts?” Eddie demanded. 

Richie tried ot wave him off but flinched halfway through the motion. “Everything,” he admitted quietly. 

“Let’s get you to your room,” the transport nurse said. “Get some rest so you can come visit Maggie later.” 

Richie hesitated. Eddie could see exhaustion mixing with anxiety in his eyes. “We’ll come back,” Richie said finally, touching Maggie’s foot again. His voice cracked. “Daddy’s gonna come back, don’t worry.”

“She says ‘bye-bye, Daddy,’” Kendall said. Eddie wanted to snap that no, obviously Maggie didn’t say that, she was barely an hour old, but Richie’s wobbly smile stopped him. 

Despite how he was starting to hurt, Richie looked half-asleep by the time they reached his room. The nurse got him hooked up to an IV with pain medication, the name of which immediately slipped Eddie’s exhausted mind. When he glanced at the clock over Richie’s bathroom door, he had to look again. 6:50 AM. Barely even morning. 

“Eddie?” Richie said in a thin voice just as Eddie started to sit in the recliner by his bed. Eddie pushed himself upright again. “I think ‘m gonna fall asleep.” 

“That’s okay.”

“My glasses.” 

“I’ll get them.” Eddie gently took Richie’s glasses off his face and set them on the bedside table. “What else do you need?”

“Nothin’.” Richie closed his eyes.

“Okay.” Eddie sat in the recliner and leaned back. He sighed contentedly when the leg rest popped up. “I’ll be right here.”

“Uh-huh,” Richie mumbled. “Can’t get rid of you, Spaghetti.” 

“Asshole,” Eddie said affectionately. He waited to close his eyes until Richie started to snore. 

#

Eddie must have dozed for a while in the recliner because suddenly he was opening his eyes to sunlight cutting through the blinds and the sound of Bev calling “knock-knock” from the doorway. She and Ben came into the room carrying a backpack and a pizza box. The backpack Ben set by the couch assumedly had Eddie’s requested change of clothes, but Eddie had his eyes fixed on the pizza box. His stomach growled. 

“Here.” Bev passed the warm box over to Eddie. “We figured you probably haven’t eaten yet today, so--oh my god,” Bev said, a little laughter in her voice as Eddie tore into the first slice of pizza. It was shitty, heart-clogging pizza with puddles of grease on the pepperonis, but Eddie wasn’t even tasting it. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food touched his mouth. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled around a mouthful of pizza. 

“Can’t believe you all came,” Richie said sleepily. He fumbled around on the bedside table for his glasses. Eddie started wiping the grease off his hands to help him, but Bev got there first. She perched Richie’s glasses on his nose. 

“Ben was out there keeping the rest of us calm.” Bev smiled at Richie, petting his hair away from his forehead. “Sending us his chill vibes.”

Ben gestured outward, as if he were sending his invisible chill vibes to the room at large. “I knew it was going to be okay. I trust the doctors, and I trust Eddie to tell the doctors if they’re doing their jobs wrong.” 

Eddie glared at Ben but couldn’t say anything with pizza in his mouth. Richie flapped a hand in his direction. “He was shockingly well-behaved.”

Eddie swallowed his bite. “Fuck off. As if you have any room to talk about being well-behaved. Making shitty jokes the whole time you were in surgery.”

“I’m sorry, you try to entertain while also having your insides exposed to the outside world.” 

“Who said you had to entertain?” Eddie said incredulously. 

Richie shrugged. “I had a captive audience! It’s not like they were going anywhere. I was just being polite.” 

"‘Polite,’ oh my god.” 

“Good to see parenthood hasn’t changed you,” Ben said, grinning. 

Richie blew a raspberry. “Oh, wait, have you seen my baby? Eddie, tell me you showed them my baby.”

“Uh.” Eddie scratched the back of his head. 

“Edward!”

“Sorry, I was a little distracted by your emergency surgery!” Eddie pulled up the photo of Richie touching Maggie’s foot and turned his phone so Ben and Bev could see. 

“Aww, sweetheart,” Bev said softly. 

Ben reached out as if he might touch Maggie through Eddie’s phone screen. “She’s perfect, Rich.” 

“I know,” Richie said smugly. Despite being almost flat on his back in a hospital bed, he was nearly preening. Eddie thought it was about the prettiest Richie had ever been. 

“Send that in the group chat,” Bev told Eddie. “Right now, before you can forget.” 

"Okay, okay.” Eddie shoved the last slice of pizza in his mouth and sent the photo. 

A nurse knocked on the door frame. “Hey, Richie,” she called. 

“We’ll head out,” Bev said. “But we’ll see you later, okay? Keep sending us pictures.” 

“I’ll make sure he does,” Richie said. His voice sounded a little thin, like he might be hurting again, but he was still grinning. “Everybody’s gotta see this perfect baby I made.” 

Once Ben and Bev left, the nurse came in. “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone just removed my baby through the sunroof,” Richie said. 

The nurse cackled. “The sunroof! I’ll have to remember that one.”

“Please don’t encourage him,” Eddie mumbled. Richie slid one hand to the side to subtly flip him off. 

“So I’m going to need to massage your uterus now.”

“My what,” Richie said flatly. Eddie cringed. 

For some reason, the nurse waited until after she had palpated Richie’s stomach to say, “You can try eating if you’d like.” Richie looked pale, but he still took the menu from the bedside table and started flipping through it. Once the nurse left, he sat up just enough to get the phone from the bedside table and call down to the cafeteria. Eddie’s heart squeezed tight when Richie started twirling the phone cord around his finger the way he used to when they were kids. 

“Are you sure you can handle food?” Eddie asked anxiously as soon as Richie got off the phone. “Are you sure that won’t be too heavy?”

“Dude, it’s just soup,” Richie said. Eddie didn’t miss the doubtful note in his voice. 

By the time someone from the cafeteria brought the soup in a little covered container, Richie seemed even paler than before. “You should feed me,” he said. 

Eddie snorted. “What, like a baby bird?”

"Yeah, I am baby, thanks.” Richie opened his mouth and peeped expectantly. 

“You’re the worst. Here.”

As soon as the spoon touched Richie’s lips, Eddie saw the change in his face. He lunged for the puke bucket with both hands, the spoon and his cane clattering to the floor. He got the bucket under Richie’s chin just in time for him to spew. Richie’s hand jerked up as he choked and convulsively grabbed Eddie’s forearm. 

Pain flared through Eddie’s ribs and spine. “Fuck,” he said, trying to balance, and then his legs gave out. He caught himself with his elbows on the mattress. He barely avoided hitting Richie’s stomach, but even that motion was enough to send Richie vomiting again. Eddie balanced the bucket against Richie’s heaving chest with one hand and slammed his other hand on the call button. 

“Help,” Eddie snapped as soon as it beeped to life. “He’s throwing up, and I fell getting the bucket, and I’m braced but I’m afraid I’m going to fall--”

“Sorry,” Richie gasped when he wasn’t retching. Eddie’s arms shook. “Eds, sorry.”

The door clicked open. “Okay, it’s okay,” the nurse said as she came around to the bed. “That’s pretty normal. You’re okay, Richie. Can you hold the bucket?” She moved Richie’s hands to grasp the rim of it. Then she braced Eddie. “Can you put weight on me to stand?”

Eddie gritted his teeth and hauled himself upright. He swayed, overwhelmed by the pain in his ribs and the acidic smell of Richie’s vomit. THe nurse quickly handed him his cane. “Check his stitches,” Eddie said quickly. “I didn’t land on him, but I landed hard, and it hurt him. Check his stitches and make sure they didn’t pop.”

"I will,” the nurse said. “Let’s let Richie catch his breath first, okay? How are you feeling, Richie?”

Richie lifted his head from the bucket and took a few deep breaths. ‘Better now that I barfed. Sorry, Eddie.”

“Shut up,” Eddie snapped. He took his own deep breaths and very pointedly did not think about the leper. “Where do you hurt? Are you bleeding?”

“Uh, yeah, my vagina’s like the fucking Shining right now, actually.” Richie cut the nurse a little grin, a tiny taste of his stage mask. She rolled her eyes and grinned back. 

“Beep beep,” Eddie grumbled, though his anxiety started to settle. Richie did look better already. “Can he have Zofran?”

“Definitely. We’ll put it in his drip. Sound good, Richie?”

“Mm, yeah, give me the good shit.” Richie closed his eyes. 

#

The Zofran seemed to finally be working when someone knocked on the door. Eddie, who had been dozing again to a rerun of Love It or List It, frowned and grabbed his cane. Ben and Bev weren’t planning to come back that day, and Bill had texted in the group chat just a little while ago to say that he, Mike, and Audra would stay home unless Richie specifically asked for them. “Who is it?” Eddie called. Richie opened his eyes and squinted toward the door. 

“Lactation,” the person sang out. 

Eddie froze. Richie’s eyes popped wide. “Uh, nope,” he said. 

The lactation consultant rolled into the room with some kind of medieval-looking machine and paused. She looked from Richie, propped up in bed in his pink hospital gown with the compression machine squeezing his lower legs, to Eddie, sprawled on the couch, and back to Richie. 

“Nope,” Richie said again, shaking his head. The lactation consultant slowly backed out of the room and shut the door. Richie burst out laughing. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Eddie snapped as soon as the door closed behind her. “Are you fucking serious? Do they not have your name and gender on your chart? Stop laughing, Richie, you’re going to pop a stitch.”

“Some guys still chestfeed or whatever,” Richie pointed out between wheezes. “But did you see her face? Oh my god. Like she opened the door and found fuckin’ Bigfoot. Jesus. I shoulda let her see my chest hair. That really would have scared her off.” 

Eddie stifled a laugh. “If you tear a stitch….” he said warningly. 

“I think they’re like staples or something. God, this hurts. Why’d you make me laugh?”

“I didn’t make you do anything, asshole, you did that all on your own.”

Richie caught his breath and swiped away a tear. “Fuck. Okay. Nobody’s allowed to do funny shit for like three weeks. Write that on my chart.” He shivered. “Mm, sweet Zofran, please work your magic.”

“Close your eyes. I’m gonna get you a cool cloth.”

“Fine,” Richie grumbled. 

When Eddie came out of the bathroom with the cloth, Richie’s eyes were closed. “You should go see her,” Richie said without opening his eyes.

Eddie carefully set the cloth on Richie’s forehead. “But you feel like garbage right now.”

“King of the Garbage.” Richie held up a peace sign. “It’s okay, it’s just like the worst possible hangover. I’ll rest, I promise. I don’t want her to be all alone.” Richie barely cracked open his eyes. “She’s never been alone before.”

Eddie blinked. He hadn’t thought about that. He wasn’t really sure how aware Maggie was of her surroundings. But she had to have noticed that it was different, that suddenly she was in a bright, cold place. She’d certainly made her opinion about it known at the very start. “I’ll be back,” Eddie said.

“I know you will. Can’t get rid of ya. Take pictures of my baby.”

It was late afternoon by now, and the halls were busier as Eddie made his way to the NICU. He wondered how many parents were here after work to see their babies. That wouldn't be him, he told himself. He had a week and a half of vacation time. Maggie wouldn't be in the NICU longer than that. 

"Hey," Kendall called when he got to Pod C. "How's other dad doing?"

"Tried to eat too soon," Eddie grumbled. "Almost puked on me." 

"Oh no. Did they get him some Zofran?"

"Yeah."

"Then he should be feeling better soon."

"How's Maggie?"

"She's stable. Want to touch her again?"

Eddie stared down at the rise and fall of Maggie's bare chest. She was so vulnerable like this. He hadn't realized how scared he would be when she was out in the world. 

“Here," Kendall said, "let’s lower the side so you can reach her better.”

“She won’t roll out?”

“She’s strapped down. And you’re right here.”

Eddie nodded. He didn’t feel capable enough to touch his baby, much less catch her if she suddenly rolled, but he assumed Kendall knew what she was doing. She confidently lowered the clear plastic side of Maggie’s bed. Eddie reached out to touch Maggie’s hand but pulled back before he made contact. “I don’t want to hurt her. I know she feels like--uh, doesn’t feel good.”

“Let me show you,” Kendall said. “So I know you and I associate sort of gently stroking someone’s hair or hand as comforting, but her nerves are so sensitive and her skin is so thin that it would irritate her. The best way to touch her is to put one hand on her head and one on her feet and just kind of hold her. Remember, she’s not used to open spaces. She feels safer when she’s confined.” 

“Got it,” Eddie said, feeling like he very much did not have it. He cupped one head around Maggie’s tiny head with its drying curls and one hand around her little feet. She sighed. The CPAP hissed. 

A monitor a few beds down started beeping. “I’ll be back after a while,” Kendall said, stepping away. Eddie watched her go to a full incubator with a heavy blanket covering the hood. She put on fresh gloves before she lifted the blanket to reveal the tiniest baby Eddie had ever seen, surely no bigger than one of Richie’s hands, strapped down with strips of cloth the way Maggie was. “Hey, buddy, what’s going on?” Kendall cooed, reaching in to untangle the baby’s wires. Eddie swallowed and tried to focus on Maggie and not the other baby’s many beeping machines. And Eddie had thought Maggie’s IV, CPAP, and heart monitor were a lot. 

Maggie’s tiny pink mouth turned down in a frown. Her brow furrowed. Eddie carefully rubbed his thumb over the little wrinkles in her forehead. “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked, heart in his throat. Maggie squirmed. Eddie swallowed against the panic bubbling in his chest. He didn’t know how to comfort a healthy baby, let alone take care of one in the NICU. He had no idea what might make her feel happy or safe. All he knew was that he couldn’t stand her worried little frown. 

What did babies like? Stories, right? But all of Eddie’s stories were about assholes at work or stupid shit Richie had done when they were kids. Nothing a little baby should hear. 

What else did babies like? Music? 

Eddie cleared his throat. He wasn’t a singer. RIchie was the singer. Richie was the entertainer. He should have been up there, holding their baby, singing to her. And there were so many nurses around, attending all the babies with their beeping monitors. Anyone could hear his out-of-tune voice. It was embarrassing. 

But Maggie was small, and alone, and, Eddie thought, probably scared. Could babies feel scared? Eddie could remember being in the hospital all alone as a kid, hooked up to monitors and IVs and god knew what else. He would have done anything for a gentle voice then, something soothing, something that wasn’t his mom. He couldn't think of anything more antithetical to his mom than singing in the NICU. 

For a minute, Eddie just listened to Maggie’s breaths hissing through the CPAP. He watched the rapid rise and fall of her bare chest. He studied the curve of her cheek where the feeding tube spooled out of her mouth. When a song finally came to him, he ducked his head down close to hers so hopefully only she could hear. 

“Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band….”

Eddie slipped his finger into Maggie’s grasp. Most of him was with her, but part of Eddie was in the rusting bed of a pickup truck. Bill’s old truck, faded red with an Acadia National Park bumper sticker on the dusty back window. Eddie was nestled by Richie, who had strong-armed him in there over his protests: “It’s fucking dangerous, do you want us to go flying off the end when Bill slams on the brakes and get our brains splattered on the road?” “Jesus, Dr. K, that’s disgusting.” Bill rolled the windows down as they rattled along a two-lane highway just outside of Derry, on the cusp of freedom. Were they 17? No, 16, or Richie wouldn’t have been riding in the bed with one arm slung over Eddie’s shoulders. They rolled past green summer cornfields, and Mike and Bill belted along to Elton John. Richie joined in too, pulling Eddie in for a noogie, and then Eddie relented, red-faced, and sang too: 

“Hold me closer, tiny dancer.” 

Maggie squeezed Eddie’s finger. “Count the headlights on the highway,” Eddie sang softly. He could still smell Richie’s shitty teen boy cologne. In his memory, Richie’s voice was deep when it blew back to him on the wind from the road, even though Eddie knew Richie’s voice hadn’t dropped yet then. Not until college, after they’d forgotten each other. That song had been old already in ‘92, something people's parents listened to. The Losers knew all the words. 

Maggie didn’t open her eyes, but she turned toward the sound of Eddie’s voice. “Yeah,” he said thickly. “That’s Daddy singing. Other Dad’s better at it. He’ll come up here tomorrow, he just feels icky right now.” Eddie never thought he would be the kind of parent to say “icky” unironically, but then again he never really thought he’d be a parent, either. “Kind of like you do, huh? But the nurses and doctors are going to take good care of you. Daddy’s going to make sure they do.” His throat closed up. “God, I love you,” he choked out. He kept quiet after that. He let Maggie hold his hand until a nurse came to check on her, and then he slipped out, back to Richie’s room. 

Richie was asleep when Eddie came into the room. Eddie slowly shut the door behind him so that it wouldn’t wake up Richie and made his way to the couch. Sleeping on the couch was probably a bad idea - he got stiff enough sleeping on their fancy Purple mattress at home - but there wasn’t enough room in the hospital bed for both of them, and he didn’t want to jar Richie by accident. 

Eddie was unfolding the thin, hospital-provided blanket that came with the couch when Richie mumbled, “Did you tell her I love her?’

“Yeah.” Eddie sat on the edge of Richie’s bed and rubbed his thumb over Richie’s cheek. Richie’s color looked a little better, although he kept his eyes closed. “Sang to her a little.”

Richie cracked open one eye to squint at Eddie. “Please tell me it was Springsteen.” 

“Elton John.”

“A good second choice.” 

Eddie took a shivering breath. “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?” Richie asked. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, no, she’s….she’s fine.” She wasn’t fine, Eddie thought, being in the NICU was pretty much the definition of being fine. But the doctor had said she was okay, just small, and she wasn’t nearly as small as the baby Kendall had helped. Maggie had Richie’s curls. She had soft little ears. She liked music, even when it was just Eddie singing. “She’s perfect, Rich. You did so good.” 

Even as tired as he was, Richie managed to smile. “I know.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will be posted in three parts. I wanted to post it all at once, but it took me a year to get just this far. 
> 
> Having a child in the NICU is a traumatic experience. So is watching your partner go through a major surgery. If your child is currently in the NICU, all my love to you. 
> 
> The real-life Maggie Moon will turn one year old in just three days. She is a happy, playful, curious kid. We are so lucky to have her. This story is for her but even more so for her mom, my partner, who sacrificed so much to have her. Sweetheart, I owe you a debt I will never be able to repay. You and our baby are my world.


End file.
